As we have reported, Maryland

As we have reported, Maryland gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has been relentlessly attacking her Republican opponent Bob Ehrlich for his votes against certain gun control measures. Ehrlich’s position has been that existing laws are sufficient, assuming that they are enforced. It turns out that in Maryland, under the incompetent Glendening-Townsend administration, the government of Maryland has failed to abide by existing gun control laws. Specifically, for a period of six months this year Maryland refused to cooperate with the FBI in carrying out statutorily-mandated criminal background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The state claimed that it ran out of money. But it cannot account for how it spent $6.7 million received from the System since 1995. Congress has asked the Government Accounting Office to investigate. The whole sorry saga is recounted in this editorial in the Washington Times. With apologies to Michael Dukakis, political races are usually more about ideology than about competence. But in the corrupt one-party state of Maryland, the Ehrlich-Townsend race may be an exception.